BBVA's Distributed Ledger Technology Successfully Completes First Pilot
The Spanish banking giant BBVA has completed the first successful trial of a new Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) known as Ripple.
The transaction, of real money, was a transfer between Spain and Mexico and according to reports, was completed in a matter of seconds – quite an improvement on the current infrastructure which requires 4 days to a process a similar transaction according to Payments Cards and Mobile.
Not only will transaction speeds increase immeasurably, customers will benefit from far more transparency when it comes to understanding what fees are being applied, and will also be able to keep track of their funds at all times.
Ripple’s blockchain network creates permanent records of all transactions and thanks to an intergrated messaging and settlement service, all parties will have access to any payment related information.
BBVA say that they will continue to experiment with Ripple’s technology and are developing several more pilots using blockchain, for example, an R3 pilot on using the blockchain to assist with syndicated loans.
Alicia Pertusa, head of Digital Transformation in Investment Banking at BBVA commented about the success of the first pilot;
“This pioneer initiative is a clear demonstration of how payment processes can be vastly improved through the implementation of emerging technologies. These improvements will benefit our clients’ transactionality.”
Ripple is a real-time gross settlement currency exchange and remmitance service, often referred to as the Ripple Protocol or Ripple Transaction Protocol, or simply as RTXP.
Ripple is currently the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap, after bitcoin and ethereum, and has been adopted by banks including UniCredit, UBS and Santander, as well as BBVA.
In fact, Ripple works with 15 of the world’s top 50 banks, has more than 30 active integrations and provides 87% coverage of FX crosses.
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